


Tim's Nightmare

by nightwingingit



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, M/M, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 02:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5850889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwingingit/pseuds/nightwingingit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He startles awake.  It’s his house.  His old house.  His lonely mansion.</p><p>It’s night and he knows the long shadows aren’t anything to be afraid of.  He’s overcome the fear of them years ago but tonight it’s different.  It’s like he’s eight years old again, the maid has gone home and it’s just him and all of this empty space around him left.  He’s scared, he’s lonely.  The room seems to get bigger, the shadows longer and he shrinks into the covers of his bed.</p><p>So utterly alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tim's Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble about Tim.
> 
> This is in no way an interpretation of characters or their relationships with each other. It is simply Tim having a horrible nightmare.
> 
> You should imagine this to take place at Tim's lowest point during Red Robin.

He startles awake.  It’s his house.  His old house.  His lonely mansion.

It’s night and he knows the long shadows aren’t anything to be afraid of.  He’s overcome the fear of them years ago but tonight it’s different.  It’s like he’s eight years old again, the maid has gone home and it’s just him and all of this empty space around him left.  He’s scared, he’s lonely.  The room seems to get bigger, the shadows longer and he shrinks into the covers of his bed.

So utterly alone.

Tim hears a noise.  Shuffling downstairs.  

“Mom?  Dad?” He calls, hope bursting out of his chest.  He runs out of his room, down the dark hallway and as he reaches the end of the stairs he see’s them.

He see’s his parents but his moment of joy is stunted.  they turn to him but instead of the smiling and greeting him they look scared as they stare in his direction.

What are they scared of?  Tim doesn’t know. Is there something behind him?  He turns his head looking behind both his shoulders.

No one is there.  He takes a step foreward but then he stills after they take a step back.  No, the thing they fear is HIM.

Tim suddenly realizes he can’t control his own body.  Suddenly he feels the cold hard metal of a gun in his hand.  Tears stream down his face because he knows what’s going to happen here and he can’t control it no matter how hard he tries.  He lifts up the gun.  His father’s shaking voice echoing his last words, “We love you, son.”  Tim shoots his mother first and then his father.  He watches their bodies crumple to the ground.  

He wants to close his eyes but he can’t.  He’s forced to stare at their blood pooling on the floor spreading out, red, dark, and thick.

The blood begins to run out over the floor, too much blood, and it’s hitting his bare feet, then he begins to sink into it like quicksand.  He’s consumed by it, and he lets himself be.

He can taste the copper in his mouth, smell the scent of death.  He floats down, down, down and then his feet land on concrete.

His body is heavy.  He falls to his knees and then his hands as well, trying to hold himself up.  Why can’t be breath?  It’s not just the smell and taste of blood anymore it’s scorching heat and suffocating smoke.  

Suddenly he’s leaning over a body.  The boy is beaten so badly he can barely move.  He’s wheezing irregularly, he’s hacking blood with every breath.  It takes him a moment to realize what he was looking at.

A young Jason Todd.  He’s dying by the Joker’s hand, beaten and bloodied, helpless and god damn still hopeful, still fighting to live, Tim can see it in his eyes as he stares directly into Tim’s soul.  Pleading eyes, young eyes that have seen too much of the world already and it hurts Tim so damn much.

He want’s to scream, “Jason!’, but the smoke is just too thick.  It’s a struggle just to stay conscious with this amount of air.

Jason opens his mouth to speak but the voice that comes out is not his own it’s Bruce’s deep grumbling warning loud and clear.

“Don’t be reckless or you’ll end up like Jason.”

Jason’s eyes so full of life, so full of fire, dulls instantly after that remark and before he had a chance to process any of this an explosion went off blinding all his senses.

Nothingness.

When he came to he felt a rush of adrenaline.  Brisk cold air, dark sky, he knows this feeling, he’s on top of a very high building.  This rooftop looks familiar but he can’t place it.

Suddenly he hears scratching noises and turns to look for the source, then he hears a voice.

“Tim! Help me!” It’s Stephanie!  It’s her voice, but where is she?!

He see’s her gloved hands barely holding on to the edge of the roof.  She’s slipping.

Tim runs as fast as he can towards her.  His fingertips almost touch hers, almost, before she plummets down, screaming at the top of her lungs.   

“HEEEEEELP!” she cries as she falls into an abyss of blackness.  She’s in her Robin suit.  Tim feels her voice shiver down his spine.

Tim leans over frantically, “Steph!  Stephanie!” he shouts in anguish.

He’s not wearing any gear.  He has nothing that can help her.

Even so he climbs up onto the edge of the building and jumps off, as if he were a diver jumping into the water.

He knows already that he can’t reach her in time.

He’s waiting for the end.  The splat of his own body after this rush of air, but his relief never comes.

After a long drop he slows just as he reaches the ground and then turns to see the sight of Stephanie’s body splattered on the concrete.

He can’t even get a word out, he’s just gaping with tears streaming down his face.

He closes his eyes and clenches at the cloth over his heart.  

He wants this to end now, stop.  Please stop.  This isn’t real.  Please.

Tim goes from only hearing the sound of his rasping breath to hearing a rushing sound.  It’s the sound that the bat’s make when they fly out of the cave in Gotham.  

He still keeps his eyes closed, hoping not to see anything more.

“I knew it.” That voice, who was it? Lobo? Wondergirl? Secret? Arrowette? they were all mixed up.  “He’s been keeping files on all of us all along.”

“What a jerk.”

“He’s just like his mentor.”

“He’s just like Batman.”

He wishes to say nothing, but he can hear his own voice tell them, as if from a memory, “I’m not like Batman, I have friends, he has acquaintances.”

“I’m not like Batman.” Echoes in his head.

“Lies and you know it.” The older version of himself tells him, grabbing him painfully by the jaw, forcing him to look at him, cowl and all.  His dream did not allow him to shut him out.

“I’m not like Batman.” He tells him defiantly.

“You can’t lie to yourself Tim, We’re too smart for that.  You know the truth.” The older him sneers out then disappears.

He sees a vision of lowering Bruce’s body into his grave.  Of staring at his tombstone not even able to comprehend, almost numb.

He feels a punch in his face, It’s Jason he’s come to kill him.  Jason’s formidable dark form towered over him in his bat uniform.  He stabs him swiftly in his gut.  Tim feels the sharp pain and he blacks out.

The blank darkness begins to brighten and he see’s Dick walk up to him in his own batman outfit, a look of concern etched on his face.  

“Tim, you’re unwell.  Stop acting like Bruce, share your feelings with me, please.”  He offers his hand.  Tim felt a small bit of relief until suddenly Dick’s grip hardened.  

It HURTS.

Tim tried to pull away but couldn’t, he looked up to Dick in confusion.  Dick’s uncharacteristically expressionless, cold, and that scared him more than anger would have, “Tim, you’re mentally unstable.  You’re not thinking reasonably.  I can’t trust what you say anymore.  I can’t trust you as my partner.  Hang up your suit Robin.”

Then his environment changes as he’s suddenly thrust into the cave.  Disoriented he tries to get his bearing but can’t.  

“I’m Robin.” He hears Damian condescend.  He then turns towards the boy and then Dick’s hand is on the demon spawns shoulder in approval.  

“I have beheaded you Drake, and now it’s... all... MINE.”  Damian lifts up a head and Tim is shocked to see that it’s HIS head and he looked... dead.  

How can that be?!  How could Dick let this happen? He feels the tightness in his neck from where his head was cut off.  Tim’s shaking hands feel his neck and yes his head is GONE!  He’s bleeding out from where he was decapitated.  He’s so disoriented his body panics in spasms.  The world swirls as Damian laughs mockingly while Dick looks on with no expression, no love or hate for him, nothing.  As if he were nothing to him.

No, no, no, NO!

He jumps awake.  He’s breathing hard as if from a bad dream.  But he’s breathing… normally... there is no pain.  He feels his neck.  His head is still there.  

He looks at his hands.  They’re small.  He’s a boy again, he’s sleeping in a cave with Bart and Kon just like they used to before the other kids joined their group Young Justice.  Their sleeping bags in a triangle around the unlit fireplace.  They seemed to have been woken up by his startled noises.

There seem’s to be a loud storm outside but everything inside the cave was very still.

“What’s wrong?” Bart asks yawning.

Tim steadies his breath, “N-nothing.  Nothing is wrong.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Tim.”  Bart answers easily.  

Tim was about to ask what he meant when the storm suddenly blows into the cave.  Tim jumps to his feet as Bart stands slowly and says, “That’s where you’re VERY wrong.”

The storm brings heavy wind and blinding rain.  It’s cold, so cold, rain harsh and stinging.  

“Bart!” Tim shouts, being drowned out by the rain, although he’s right in front of him Tim can’t see him anymore, it was like the storm had come in and sat on top him.

Tim determinedly tried to make his way over to Bart without being knocked over by the wind and suddenly strong arms captured him, stalling his meager advances.

Somehow in the wet cold rain Conner’s body was still radiating heat.  His arms were solid, his breathing even, demeanor calm.

Tim still reached out to Bart, shouting for him to come to him, to reach for his hand even though he could not see him anymore.

Kon held him in closer, “Tim.” he said, “It’s no use.”

“Conner we have to save him!  Conner come on!  Bart!  Please we have to save him!”

Again he knows.  He KNOWS it’s already too late.

Conner turns Tim around in his arms.  He then holds their bodies glued together.  A hand at his waist tightly squeezing him and had a hand holding Tim’s head to his chest.

The rain and wind vanish then Kon says, “Rob, he’s dead.”

As Conner says these words Tim shakes his head fervently.

The scene becomes so bright and then completely white.  In this blank existence is just the two of them.

“Shh it’s okay,” Conner soothes as Tim upright sobs into his chest.

The feeling of Kon’s chest, his form enveloping him in a warm tight hug.

The feeling of safety.  The assurance that he was loved.

Tim wraps his own arms around Kon and squeezes as tight as he could just as he always did.  He knew was going to happen.  Tim knew everything about this dream he's had it a million times.

He knew that soon there would be no Kon there to hug.

Kon pats his head so gently as he says the words, “Tim... I’m dead.”

Tim squeezes some more, just sobbing, shaking his head, as the form of Kon just evaporates until he’s not holding on to anything anymore and he’s fallen to his knees.  His sobs only growing stronger.  The flood of tears flowing fast and steady not letting up in the slightest for a long time.

He curses himself because having felt it, that feeling of Kon’s arms again.  He did want to remember it but at the same time he didn't.  He went days without this.  Days without remembering the feeling of Kon's arms, and then he thinks, maybe, just maybe, he'll be okay.  But just as surely he has the dream again and he's back at square one, longing so much for that feeling once more.  It was like a drug.  He needed it.  He needed to feel them around him again.  To hear his voice.  He loved him so much.

He’s on his kneeling before the case with Conner’s uniform in his secret lab.  

“Test 340 failed.” the computer tells him.

Tim’s consciousness doesn’t wish to say it.  He knows it won’t work.  He knows that even if it worked it would never be the same.  But he hears himself say the words anyways.  He hears his own voice, tired, desperate, and ragged and he doesn't want to be this person, he doesn't, but he is, “Run it again.”

\---

The sunlight streams into his apartment window.  He’s awake.  For real this time.

He goes about his day as usual.   

“What’s wrong Tim?” Dick asks.

The bags under Tim’s eyes are prevalent.

“Nothing.” Tim answers simply.

He just needs more coffee.  More coffee so that he has to sleep less and then when he must sleep he needs sleeping pills that knock him out like anesthesia so that he doesn’t continue to have these dreams.  That’s all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic will probably fit in my pre52/young justice au that will be coming but for now its a standing oneshot drabble.


End file.
